My new character tests

#1

Hey all
I’ve been working on a new super hero type of character lately. I’ve really been pushing this one. I wanted a character I could take to extreme poses without breaking. He’s turning out very well. I only have his head rigged so far and have done some sample expressions. His jaw is controlled by bones so that his inner mouth and teeth stick. His lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are done via morph targets. The first sample is the low resolution real time poly model, the second is after Encage. Encage is working very well so far in these tests.

The only thing I’m trying to figure out are the eyes. They are not perfect spheres so if I rotate them they pop out the sides of the heads. In the past I just deformed the eyeball attached a pupil with “inherit deform” on and have it constrained to a target and it would conform to the eyeball. Well, I want it to look better than that. Pupils should be concave not convex. So I tried deforming the eye with texture mapped pupil to fit the socket, then tried to rotate the eye but unfortunately the deform region rotates with it so it pops out the side of the head. What I need for this character is for the deform region to lock and allow the sphere to rotate within the region. This way it would always fit snugly in the head. I’ve been told EI deformers do not work like this (and that they did at one point). BAM, just hit my head on EI’s roof again! So I’m currently looking for another solution.

Take a look and feel free to critique.

http://www.morleyarts.com/post/super-rigged.mov

http://www.morleyarts.com/post/super.mov

#2

His eyes when animatable will add SO much more life to this guy. I can’t wait until I find a solution.

#3

Nice work. Very nice. :slight_smile:

#4

Nice work. The expressions are very well done. His jaw movement (a bit ¨floffi¨) is very funny.
FelixCat

#5

Hey guys
Thanks for the kind words. Well, I went about the eyes another way in this test. I deformed a null and attached the eyes to the null with inherit deformation turned on. Now the eyes rotate within the nulls deform region. Works great. Only problem is now the eyebrow bones are no longer skinned to the eyes, so when I raise the eyebrows it leaves the eyes alone. So I’ve had to key the stretch deformer of the eye by hand to fit in the head. Next step is to automate this process using XP. I’ll let you know my progress with that.

Here’s 2 samples with the new eyes moving. First one is the low poly rigged model. The second is a final render using encage.

Feel free to critique.

Thanks

http://www.morleyarts.com/post/super-rigged-02.mov

http://www.morleyarts.com/post/super-02.mov

#6

Wow Richard!

you’ve done another excellent job, I like the expression especially, it seem that you put a lot of effort in the details movement, no critique at all.

Loon

#7

Sorry I didn’t back to you sooner, this is what I would suggest and how I have had to do it even with cartoon eyes that are not connected to the head. I didn’t know you didn’t do it this way. You can even double them up and use one larger one for both eyes, if you want them to slant and do all kind of stuff.

Keep up the good work. It looks really excellent and I really like how the pupils don’t stretch weirdly halfway through. It would be if you can box them into a effector deformer too.

crit: The reflections on the whites are a little harsh and symetrical.

Also I think it’s good to have the brows animateable separately.

#8

Hey Alonzo
Thanks for the suggestions. I am working on a few more expressions. One of which will be separate eyebrow movements as you suggested. I’m currently working on the rig. More specifically the hand rig. I’m going to automate this rig as much as possible with XP. I should have some results to post today in that area.

Thanks

#9

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